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Wednesday, July 26, 2017

A Matter of Perspective

People often look at the four Gospels and wonder why there are slight differences between them. They all share the same essential message, that Jesus was the Son of God in the flesh who lived and died and rose from the dead. Yet each Gospel has it's own particular lens of looking at Jesus: to Matthew Jesus is the Messiah, to Mark he is the Lord, to Luke he is the Divine Healer, and for John the Son of God. Vatican II's document on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, tells us that scripture is "the words of God, expressed in the words of men" (DV 13).

By way of analogy, this video does a great job of showing how different photographers, trying to emphasize a particular idea, produced different views of the same man. Again, like the Gospels, the essence of the man photographed is the same, the lighting, angle, and setting give different perspectives.

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about me

I'm Tom Ponchak. I received a degree in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. After graduation I worked as a parish youth minister in Maryland and a high school religion teacher in Michigan.
In 1997, my wife and I left the Catholic Church and joined the Association of Vineyard Churches, a non-denominational, evangelical faith community. I was the founding pastor of Matthew's House Vineyard in central Florida.
After ten years away from Catholicism, and longing for the Eucharist, I returned to the Church in 2006. I am currently the Director of Adult Faith Formation at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish in Indiana. I am also a member of the Domestic expression of the Brothers and Sisters of Charity.